"The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books"
About this Quote
Elderly advice, Holmes suggests, often has the same problem as those pompous "100 best books" lists: it’s less a usable map than a performance of taste. The comparison lands because it’s politely savage. A canon is supposed to guide you, yet it mostly reflects the compiler’s self-image - the signal they want to send about seriousness, refinement, morality. Holmes implies that older generations can turn counsel into a curated shelf: impressive, orderly, and oddly detached from the mess of being young.
The intent isn’t anti-wisdom; it’s anti-posturing. By calling elders’ advice "unreal", Holmes isn’t accusing them of lying so much as forgetting. Time edits memory. Struggle gets retrofitted into a narrative where the right choices appear obvious, where risk looks like character-building rather than chaos. Advice becomes aspirational autobiography: what the elder believes they should have been, offered as what the young should do.
The subtext bites at authority. A list of great books is also a tool of gatekeeping: it tells you what counts, who belongs, and what ignorance looks like. Holmes hints that generational guidance can work the same way, policing youth under the cover of benevolence.
Context matters: Holmes lived in a century obsessed with moral instruction, improvement literature, and genteel standards - a culture that loved prescribing uplift. His line punctures that era’s confidence with a shrugging realism: experience can’t be handed down as a syllabus.
The intent isn’t anti-wisdom; it’s anti-posturing. By calling elders’ advice "unreal", Holmes isn’t accusing them of lying so much as forgetting. Time edits memory. Struggle gets retrofitted into a narrative where the right choices appear obvious, where risk looks like character-building rather than chaos. Advice becomes aspirational autobiography: what the elder believes they should have been, offered as what the young should do.
The subtext bites at authority. A list of great books is also a tool of gatekeeping: it tells you what counts, who belongs, and what ignorance looks like. Holmes hints that generational guidance can work the same way, policing youth under the cover of benevolence.
Context matters: Holmes lived in a century obsessed with moral instruction, improvement literature, and genteel standards - a culture that loved prescribing uplift. His line punctures that era’s confidence with a shrugging realism: experience can’t be handed down as a syllabus.
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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